Pastures new...

It's been a while since we've seen a lot of you (assuming anyone is still out there in blogland...) and even longer since we posted here. This is just a short note to say more of an "au revoir" than a "goodbye". I'd also like to thank you for your company and conversation during what has been a very happy period in our lives. We'll pop back to the field every now and again, and maybe set some meetings up via the blog, if it keeps going. We'll continue to post details of our new adventures and new destinations and hope to keep up to speed with life on Castle Walk. We had our first evening stroll last night and a couple of shots I took are below - hope you like them. It was a glorious evening, and Archie was far more interested in the swallows than any of the FOUR hares we saw. Blog soon, take it easy and thanks again. A&L&A

Is it just Labradors?

Is it just Leroy or are all Labradors always hungry?

I spent the morning in contented domestic bliss making the bread for the week ahead before Andy, Molly, Leroy and I went to the Long Mynd to have a picnic in the sunshine and watched the gliders riding the thermals.

When we got home, the bread which was now lovely and plump and risen to perfection ready for the oven (such a satisfying moment and much improved thanks to Brompton Cookery School Lessons). The loaves were placed in the oven and baked to their golden loveliness and when the it was done the bread was left on the kitchen side to cool.

The house smelt of delicious fresh bread and unfortuntely, the temptation proved too great for Leroy who sneaked out of the lounge and took one of the 1kg loaves from the kitchen side and devoured the lot!

Now I don't know about you, but it's hard not to get angry with a dog who has just eaten the bread that you have lovingly spend 2-hours of your weekend making, however; the poor little man. His initial lip smacking satisfaction quickly turned to discomfort as his belly began to take on the might of 1kg of granary bread and drinking water just made the situation worse. Do you take your dog to the vet for eating too much bread?....

Google is such a great tool when you're not too sure if a loaf can kill! When typing in 'dog ate loaf of bread' into the search engine, it is quite unbelievable how incredibly common this occurance seems to be. Advice differed massively from 'take your dog immediately to the vet' to 'don't feed him anything for 24 hrs' (not that he could physically fit any more food in). On advice from vets24 (or something of that ilk) we went with the majority opinion posted by vets to let him ride it out... not pleasant.

I must say that you would thing that Leroy would have learnt his lesson after his stomach was stretched to capacity, but alas no! Today he had managed to open and devour an entire 24 hour ration pack; 7000+ calories in one sitting - this dog can sniff out any morsel of food at 1000 yds!

The moral of this story is simple - Labradors are ALWAYS hungry, so lock up your lunch!

Greyhound Rescue Shropshire and Borders

Great British Greyhound Walk

Great British Greyhound Walk at The Quarry in Shrewsbury. 11am-1:30pm. Refreshments will be provided after the walk for a small donation. The idea is that on 26 June 2011 we have as many greyhounds and lurchers walking together all over the country, bringing owners together regardless of where their hound has been homed from, to celebrate greyhounds, to raise awareness of greyhounds and to promote greyhounds as pets in a BIG way. All sighthound breeds are welcome.
Link to the website http://www.greatbritishgreyhoundwalk.btck.co.uk/

UFO sighting over Castle Walk!!!

Turns out it was just our 'Eye in the Sky' Anth, and Graham taking a spin in a
plane over 'The Walk' on Sunday night, whatever next.
If you look very closely you can just make out Anths huge grey lens hanging out of the window!

A Different Angle...

Graham (Polo's owner) very generously took me flying today in an attempt to get a different angle on our little dog walking heaven. Thankfully, we got up there between the showers and were rewarded with some stunning views and lots of really interesting shots. I thought I'd post this one as a little taster as I tried to get as many of our streets in as possible. I'll edit a few more and hope to share them in the next few days. Hope everyone's well and thanks again to all concerned with Steve's birthday do yesterday. It's been a great weekend. Cheers Graham!

Fun in (and with!) Dandelions...

Two new pics for you today; Jack and Archie thoroughly enjoyed each other's company over the weekend, and all of the dandelions in full bloom certainly added a lovely splash of colour to the field. Not content with that, Archie took it upon himself yesterday to take his desire to organise EVERYTHING in his world one step further, by attempting to catch every single seed on the wind... I love my dog, but he's an odd one!

Refreshing Spaniel shower...

Ollie got his own back on Lily last night for all her recent Spaniel baiting, with a good old shake down, straight in her face! It's fantastic to see all the dogs getting wet and loving the cracking weather we've been enjoying, long may it continue. Happy Easter to one and all.

Hello fellow walkers, are we still quizzing tonight?

DIY Grooming...

Just a snippet of dialogue from yesterday afternoon...

Steve (the human one) addressing Biff the terrier: "Who cut YOUR hair?"

Beulah: "I did!"

Biff just looked on forlornly. I'm guessing it's not what he asked for and there was probably no tip...

Harold "Dylan" Lloyd

Dylan has been bad, really bad. Now he is usually pretty bad so no big news there, his behaviour is a bit like the old saying used by husbands throughout the land “I am always in the mire it’s just the depth that varies”

Yes he is famous at home as the “muffin snatcher”, he likes a club biscuit (don’t we all), croissants, eggs, mince pies basically anything that is found in a breadbin or left within reach of his snout. Yes, he runs like a loon barking at everyone, yes, he runs off, but the other day he took the biscuit (metaphorically rather than Sarah’s club biscuits) and ran on to the railway tracks! Hannah and James were walking him so they were stuck in a very precarious position near the tracks with the (friendly) signal man shouting from his box that Dylan should get off the track quickly as a train was due in one minute. Much panic and coaxing of the one eyed idiot ensued, Dylan ambled very, very slowly without a care in the world across the mesh of rails whilst the distant train bore down on him. Sandy, Coco and Sophie were running a book on his chances and there was a lot money on Dylan meeting the 3.20 from Crewe. Needless to say Dylan made it across the tracks to safety, Hannah and James breathed a sigh of relief and managed to deliver him home.

I was talking to Anth abou this earlier today and he likened the situation to an old black and white Harold Lloyd style movie which sort of summed Dylans life up, at least he does his own stunts like Harold Lloyd. So this got me thinking, Dylan has many guises such as the Artful Dodger, Harold Lloyd and I tend to think of him like the shopkeeper in Mr Ben because of the way appears as if by magic.

So I thought it might be interesting to find out what famous characters the owners of the other dogs on the walk think their pooch(es) reminds them of. We have loads of characters for our pack of dogs what are yours?

PS. I hope the injury improves Anth. Anth is suffering from housemaids knee from taking all those great pictures for us, he should be back to light jogging soon now his fitness and motivational coach is back.

PPS. Sorry Nick, I know I pinched your excellent photo but as you can see I have added some fantastic photoshop work turning Dylan into Harold Lloyd

2 Jokes for April

Why are dogs such bad dancers?.....................Because they have 2 left feet!

What do you get if you cross a sheepdog with a rose?............... A collie flower!

Might not be around...

It will be hit and miss if I can get down with Steve, if at all, so don't think I am abandoning you all.

We are having to walk the dogs separately for the next 2 weeks and Andy will be walking Steve and it will be later than I did. I will be doing short 5-10 min strolls 3/4 times a day with Kira. Poor girlie went through major surgery on Monday at Liverpool Uni Small Animal Hospital, she had Pyometra, one thing I have always dreaded because she was unspayed. Because of the heart condition she had, it was a very high risk her having anaesthetic, hence why the op was carried out at Liverpool and not the vets. She had a full cardio check-up first so they knew how much gas to give her. Her heart appeared and acted normal on the scan and ECG, so she must be in remission with it.

She has pulled through the op remarkably well for her age and I brought her home yesterday, I was first told she would be there 3-4 days but both surgeons were chuffed with how she came through it.

I thought the phantom preggie she was having was different to how it usually was, so got her to the vets and then the referral to Liverpool.... thank goodness for pet insurance though

See you all soon and I expect I will have been worn to a frazzle by then keeping Steve away from Kira

Lynne

Talking of the Severn... here's a pic!

Dogs and their toys are far more interesting to look at than humans with theirs!

It must be love

Had one of those, it must be love moments this morning.

I was greeted at early o'clock by three puddles of cold, wet, dog sick (too much grass and River Severn water I suspect) which, given my current circumstances, was quite a challenge to clean up! Whilst cleaning, bleaching and binning the evidence through severely gritted teeth all I could think was - this is love...

Funny how Jim managed to miss the sick and go to work oblivious!

The best a man can get.

 

Could Anth be any happier than in this picture? Big new lens in one hand, whilst being snogged by an adorable Border Collie pup, doesn't get much better than than this for our resident Canine Paparazzo! Keep up the good work mate. 

A Good Time Had By All

Steve got up close and personal with Jay and Wilson this afternoon as everyone, including Polo (see below) got on really well and thoroughly enjoyed the sunshine. ALL of the dogs were impeccably behaved and gave Steve the BC, Fergus the Border Terrier and Jack the Collie a generous and warm welcome. Myself and Arch really enjoyed the company and it was great to meet some new faces. Being such a friendly tri-colour, Steve reminded me a lot of Noggin, who is not having the best of times at the moment. We hope to see him again soon as the Border Collie community just keeps on growing and growing! More pics on Flickr btw. See you soon. A&A

nice walk till the end

today was the second time iv been down for a while and really enjoyed my self good few dogs and plenty of people including kids, all the dogs really enjoyed it, polo didnt know what do with her self. sadly it came time to leave and polo went of with kayleigh and i slowley followed with chatting at the same time, when i walked round the corner i saw a lady with two chilldren and polo, i shouted polo and then the lady hit her and i run over and was greated by two crying kids and a very angry woman screeming at me that polo had just bitten one of her chilldren, now anyone that has ever met polo or seen her that day will no that she wouldnt do that, so it all got a bit heated so i just walked on and ignored her to stop making a seen but unfortunatly and i do appoligise for this but the lady said she will be ringing the council to report the "out of controll dogs that over come the field when it is for kids" im sorry if this affects any one in any way and so i can argue my/are case if the council get involved i gave her my name, number and adress, and if i thought slightly that polo had bitten some one i would have her at the vets as soon as possible, i would not have a dog i was unsure about around my 2 year old

Newbie

Hi I'm Lynne and I have 2 dogs, Kira an 8 yr old GSD and Steve a 22 week old tri-colour Border Collie. I have fostered lots of dogs over the last 3 / 4 years and regularly dog sit my daughter's Staffie X. I never intended to adopt a dog because of Kira's age and the fact she has Hip Dysplasia. I went to Moorlands to take pics of the litter of 5 x 9½ week old BC pups and ended up reserving one!

We have been to Castle Walk a couple of times but never saw another dog there :-( We usually exercise the dogs either in Meole School playing fields or the fields at the bottom of our road in Meole Village.

Steve would love another dog to play with, Kira does her own thing on a walk and poor Steve just runs about on his own. He will not fetch a ball or anything else on a walk but will play for ages indoors with a ball. Steve is very friendly and adores people and other dogs... Emma with Ralfie & Bolt will verify this.

Regards Lynne

Quiz anyone?

Jack says it's quiz night again everyone! All welcome, Wednesday night at the Abbey Pub on Monkmoor Road. Quiz starts @ 9pm. C u there 8:30 onwards. Bring your big brains...

Zanzibar the house dog!

Hi All, not posted for ages and ages but I am overseas and have a lot of time on my hands this evening. As some of you know we have a dog over here in Sudan called Zanzi, she is a very good girl but can mischievous. She likes to have her tummy rubbed, plays with her ball and HATES Somalian truck drivers.

The picture was taken outside our house during a rare moment when we could get her to sit and be still.

I think she is the most pampered dog in town, treats, ball, sofa, most dogs here in Juba scavenge on the street, although our neighbours have a very nice but mad dog called Ugly Betty. Mean but sadly appropriate (she is lovely really)